Electoral Politics

Winston Churchill once observed, "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." Yet to understand what it means to say that a government is democratic, we must understand the practices of governing, institutions and the people who are elected to run them.  How are the candidates for public office selected? How are elections organized and conducted? Who may (and may not) vote? What laws or practices facilitate voting or discourage various groups of citizens from participating in elections?

We must also understand how our elected representatives executive their duties.  What is the role of party politics in developing and passing legislation? How do partisan politics affect which issues are considered and how legislative actions about them are framed? How are relationships among elected officials, the permanent bureaucracy, the military, and the judiciary conceived and carried out? How do relationships between nation states affect internal political processes?

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